Poetry day!
As I proved several times being unable to write a single verse worth reading (neither in English nor in French), I'll post a poem I love. It's by Giacomo Leopardi (from Il Zibaldone).
As I have a fondness for the French prose translation done by poet Ren Char, I'll post it too... for benefit of hypothetic french-reading visitors!
I also have found an anonymous English translation, I'm not totally comfortable with... (example: "Eternity is mine" sounds sort of lame besides " e mi sovvien l'eterno"; even lamer is: "I compare that everlasting silence with this sound"... and so on).
Please, SG literati, feel free to submit your own English translation!
L'infinito
Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle,
E questa siepe, che da tanta parte
Dell'ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.
Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati
Spazi di l da quella, e sovrumani
Silenzi, e profondisssima quiete
Io nel pensier mi fingo, ove per poco
Il cor non si spaura. E come il vento
Odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
Infinito silenzio e questa voce
Vo comparando: e mi sovvien l'eterno,
E le morte stagioni, e la presente
E viva, e il suon di lei. Cosi tra questa
Immensit s'annega il pensier mio:
E il naufragar m' dolce in questo mare.
L'infini
Toujours me plut cette colline si seule et cette haie qui, par tant de longueurs, drobe l'horizon.
Mais quand je m'assieds pour la regarder, par ma pense se crent au-del d'elle d'interminables espaces, des silences surhmains, une paix trs profonde; o peu s'en faut que mon coeur ne s'effraie. Et lorsque j'entends le vent bruire dans les plantes, je vais comparant l'infini de ce silence cette voix, et me souviens de l'ternel, des saisons mortes, et de celle prsente et vivante, et de son bruissement. Ainsi dans cette immensit s'anantit ma pense: et naufrager m'est doux en cette mer.
Translated: by Ren Char.
Infinity
This lonely hill was ever dear to me,
And this green edge, that hides so large a part
Of the remote horizon from my view.
But as I sit and gaze, my mind conceives
Unending spaces, silences unearthly,
And deepest peace, wherein the heart almost
Draws nigh to fear. And as I hear the wind
Rustling among the branches, I compare
That everlasting silence with this sound:
Eternity is mine, and all past ages,
And this age living still, with all its noise.
So in immensity my thought is drowned,
And sweet it is to founder in this sea.
Translated by ???
As I proved several times being unable to write a single verse worth reading (neither in English nor in French), I'll post a poem I love. It's by Giacomo Leopardi (from Il Zibaldone).
As I have a fondness for the French prose translation done by poet Ren Char, I'll post it too... for benefit of hypothetic french-reading visitors!
I also have found an anonymous English translation, I'm not totally comfortable with... (example: "Eternity is mine" sounds sort of lame besides " e mi sovvien l'eterno"; even lamer is: "I compare that everlasting silence with this sound"... and so on).
Please, SG literati, feel free to submit your own English translation!
L'infinito
Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle,
E questa siepe, che da tanta parte
Dell'ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.
Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati
Spazi di l da quella, e sovrumani
Silenzi, e profondisssima quiete
Io nel pensier mi fingo, ove per poco
Il cor non si spaura. E come il vento
Odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
Infinito silenzio e questa voce
Vo comparando: e mi sovvien l'eterno,
E le morte stagioni, e la presente
E viva, e il suon di lei. Cosi tra questa
Immensit s'annega il pensier mio:
E il naufragar m' dolce in questo mare.
L'infini
Toujours me plut cette colline si seule et cette haie qui, par tant de longueurs, drobe l'horizon.
Mais quand je m'assieds pour la regarder, par ma pense se crent au-del d'elle d'interminables espaces, des silences surhmains, une paix trs profonde; o peu s'en faut que mon coeur ne s'effraie. Et lorsque j'entends le vent bruire dans les plantes, je vais comparant l'infini de ce silence cette voix, et me souviens de l'ternel, des saisons mortes, et de celle prsente et vivante, et de son bruissement. Ainsi dans cette immensit s'anantit ma pense: et naufrager m'est doux en cette mer.
Translated: by Ren Char.
Infinity
This lonely hill was ever dear to me,
And this green edge, that hides so large a part
Of the remote horizon from my view.
But as I sit and gaze, my mind conceives
Unending spaces, silences unearthly,
And deepest peace, wherein the heart almost
Draws nigh to fear. And as I hear the wind
Rustling among the branches, I compare
That everlasting silence with this sound:
Eternity is mine, and all past ages,
And this age living still, with all its noise.
So in immensity my thought is drowned,
And sweet it is to founder in this sea.
Translated by ???
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
The infinity
Still pleased me this hill so only and this hedge that, by so many lengths, steal the horizon.
But when I sit down to look at it, by my thought create themselves beyond her of interminable spaces, of the silences surhmains, a very deep peace; where almost my heart is afraid. And when I hear wind to murmur in the plants, I go comparing the infinity of this silence to this voice, and remember of the eternal, the dead seasons, and the one present and living, and of his/her/its swish. So in this immensity is annihilated my thought: and naufrager I am soft in this sea.
[Edited on Sep 03, 2003]